Most people, when they have a mental vision of an Army fort on the American frontier, think of a wooden stockade of standing timber – but that was hardly ever the case in Texas. Indians almost never attacked those forts, so defensive walls were not necessary. An Army… Read full post »

That expression became something of a family joke, as I came around, by easy steps, from being a teller of tall tales, an intermittent scribbler, an unrepentant essayist, a fairly dedicated blogger … to being – as my daughter put it -  a real arthur. Yes, a “real arthur”… Read full post »

The real stuff comes hot off the grill, wrapped in heavy butcher-paper, served up with a couple of slabs of plain white bread, lashings of sauce, onions, coleslaw and beans. When it's still on the grill, and you go out to the screen-enclosed porch where the industrial-strength griller/smoker sits - a… Read full post »

From: Sgt. Mom

To: All In Group
Re: Effective Response to Ungentlemanly Attentions

1. It is occassionally brought to my attention that certain alleged gentlemen in public life have been behaving in an abusive and ungentlemanly manner, most particularly in their attentions to assorted female co-worke… Read full post »

My pet-loving neighbor, Judy, claims that the very best cats have something of the qualities of dogs in them; they are friendly, curious and open to all kinds of adventurous interaction with other species. Sometimes such cats as these like water, are perfectly agreeable to walking on a leash… Read full post »

1. Bring a gun. Preferably two guns. Bring all of your friends who have guns.
2. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive.
3. Only hits count. The only thing worse than a miss is a slow miss.
4. Move away from your attacker. Distance… Read full post »

So, why is all this historical stuff important, wonders every bored high school student, leafing through a textbook the size of a small-city telephone directory -  which for all the efforts of the pedagogic classes – is usually about as interesting as one. Thick concrete-like block… Read full post »

It was briefly reported in the aftermath of that car-bomb attempt on the Glasgow airport terminal, some two years ago, that bystanders yelled “let the ****er burn!” as rescuers attempted to extinguish the fire burning on the clothes and flesh of one of the aspiring jihadis.

 The f… Read full post »

           My Grandpa Jim, who was short, energetic, and as a young man, fabulously charming, emigrated from Five-Mile-Town, County Armagh in 1910. Sometime over the next few years, he fetched up in Southern California. Having been… Read full post »

 (Another essay from a couple of years ago, when I was still trying to get my second venture into historical fiction published the traditional way.)

 Or this one would, if it weren't a weekday. Besides the slow corrosive frustration of dealing with the various submissions processes of the b… Read full post »

(Hey look - I could have called this entry "Fried Green Pickles at the Whistlestop Cafe ... but what the heck, it was more fun this way.)

So, once the Halloween decorations were sorted out and put away, we could think of nothing better to do… Read full post »

 (A little more on the process of creating agreeable and fairly historically-accurate genre fiction - a blog-post originally done when I had nearly completed the final edit of  Book One - Adelsverein and was researching and scribbling the first draft of  Book Two.)

 Oh, the blogg… Read full post »

My daughter rather enjoys Halloween; she has a penchant for dressing up the walkway from the street to our front door with large spiderwebs adorned with large spiders, with skulls and bones scattered here and there, and strings of orange and purple lights.

 We also have a penchant for humiliatin… Read full post »

I’ve done three local book club meetings so far, to answer questions from readers who have read one or anther of the Trilogy, and have another two scheduled in the near future, so I thought I’d get around to answering some of the questions that I have been asked about the… Read full post »

Sometimes, it’s a real pain in the ass, knowing history – kind of like one of those lines of telepaths in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover novels, who could see all the possible futures, resulting from any deliberate or random action and usually went mad, from it – not daring… Read full post »

The Road to Quivera

Chapter Two: A Traveler from a New Land

             On the whole, Jane Goodacre reflected, the morning of her first day as personal maid to Lady Isobel, it was much more interesting – if a little more onerous &… Read full post »

(Just for fun, and for skeletnwmn - who is about to buckle down and get serious about her own book-writing - this was something I scribbled for my other blog, in January, 2007, when I was just getting launched on the epic which would eventually become the Adelsverein Trilogy. This is… Read full post »